The global sportsbook industry is no longer expanding in one simple direction. The old model was to chase whichever country had just opened, spend aggressively on marketing, and hope scale would arrive before regulation tightened. That still happens, but the market is more selective now. The fastest-growing operators are choosing jurisdictions where regulation is moving toward stability, payment flows are improving, and customer acquisition can translate into long-term retention instead of a short-lived launch spike.
That is why Brazil, the United States and parts of Europe now sit at the center of any serious conversation about sportsbook expansion. They are not identical opportunities. Brazil is the standout “newly regulated at scale” story. The U.S. remains the largest modern laboratory for state-by-state sportsbook deployment. Europe is more mature, but it still offers some of the most attractive expansion routes through consolidation, licensing depth, and brand extensions into locally resilient markets. Europe’s overall gambling market reached €123.4 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2024, with online channels accounting for 39% and sports and events betting representing 29% of online gross gaming revenue.
For the biggest bookmakers, the question is no longer just where betting is legal. The real question is where scale can be built efficiently, defended under tighter rules, and turned into durable market share. On that measure, Brazil is currently the fastest-moving strategic prize, the U.S. remains the benchmark for operational scale, and Europe rewards operators that know how to grow through disciplined positioning rather than pure land grab.
Why the next wave of sportsbook growth looks different
A few years ago, many operators could still talk about expansion as if market entry alone created value. That is much harder today. Licensing costs are higher, compliance demands are stricter, tax frameworks are more material to margins, and regulators are paying closer attention to advertising, responsible gambling, and market conduct. Growth still matters, but low-quality growth is much easier to destroy than it used to be.
This shift explains why the best bookmakers are leaning on a more advanced expansion playbook. They want markets with real population scale, but they also want regulatory clarity, a clear path to legal customer acquisition, and enough local familiarity to avoid building from zero. In practice, that favors companies with strong technology, multiple brands, flexible trading infrastructure, and experience in localized payments and risk management.
The largest global groups already show this pattern. Flutter has continued to emphasize regulated-market leadership and reported roughly 41% online sports betting market share in the U.S. states where FanDuel Sportsbook was live during fiscal 2025. Entain has kept leaning on major regional brands and its BetMGM joint venture in the U.S. Betsson has expanded aggressively in Latin America and said Latin America accounted for 27% of group revenue in 2025, while also noting launches under local licenses in Brazil and Paraguay. FDJ UNITED has used the Kindred transaction to build a broader European champion rather than rely on one domestic story.
The result is a more interesting competitive map. Instead of one universal “best market,” there are three different growth profiles:
• Brazil offers fresh legal scale and a chance to lock in brand position early.
• The U.S. offers giant revenue pools and proven digital sportsbook habits, but with fierce state-by-state competition.
• Europe offers less novelty, but often better strategic depth through acquisitions, local licenses, and portfolio diversification.
That matters because fast scaling is not the same as fast launching. The operators winning now are the ones that can turn regulation into infrastructure, not just publicity.
Brazil: the freshest large-scale expansion market
Brazil is the market that most clearly combines novelty and size. The country’s fixed-odds betting framework moved into full regulated operation in 2025, and since January 1, 2025 only companies authorized by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting have been permitted to operate nationally. Federal authorization allows up to three brands per license, and federally authorized betting sites operate under the “.bet.br” domain extension. The Ministry of Finance continues to publish updated lists of authorized operators, which is one of the clearest signs that Brazil has shifted from a grey-market story into a live regulated ecosystem.
For top bookmakers, Brazil is attractive for a simple reason: few newly regulated markets come with this level of population, sports culture, digital engagement, and brand-building potential. Football gives operators a natural acquisition engine, but the real prize is broader than football alone. Brazil offers a large addressable audience, rising familiarity with online betting products, and enough room for multiple brand strategies under one authorization structure.
That is why so many major operators have treated Brazil as a strategic priority rather than a side market. Kaizen Gaming’s Betano highlighted that it received the first license notification in Brazil at the end of 2024, underscoring how quickly serious operators moved to secure formal status. Betsson said it technically launched under local gaming licenses in Brazil during the first quarter of 2025. Flutter has been especially active through its Brazil strategy, tying together Betfair and Betnacional and using acquisitions and local brand positioning to strengthen its national footprint.
The bookmakers best placed to scale in Brazil are not always the ones with the most famous global names. In many cases, they are the ones that combine international operating discipline with a brand architecture that feels local. That is an important distinction. Brazil is large enough for top-tier global groups, but local relevance still matters. Payment options, customer support tone, sponsorship fit, football partnerships, and cultural fluency can meaningfully affect conversion and retention.
A useful example is Flutter’s approach. Betfair has strong global recognition, but Betnacional gives the group a more locally resonant mass-market route. That kind of portfolio design may become a template for other operators that want both credibility and familiarity. Betano, meanwhile, has built strong visibility and moved early in regulation. Betsson’s progress shows that second-wave entrants can still build serious share if they enter with the right operating model instead of arriving late and generic.
Brazil also illustrates a broader truth about sportsbook scaling. The winners are rarely just the companies that spend the most at launch. They are the ones that arrive with licensing certainty, payment readiness, local partnerships, and a product mix that can survive when the marketing frenzy cools. In that sense, Brazil is not just a high-growth market. It is the clearest current test of who can industrialize expansion properly.
The United States: still the benchmark for sportsbook scale
Brazil may be the freshest large opportunity, but the United States remains the clearest proof that modern online sportsbook expansion can create enormous value. The market is not “new” in the same way Brazil is, yet it still matters more than almost any other region because it has shown how large a regulated online betting ecosystem can become when adoption, product quality and legalization line up.
The American Gaming Association’s latest data shows that commercial gaming revenue in the U.S. reached another record in 2025, extending a multi-year growth trend. Sports betting has been a central part of that story, supported by state-level legalization, major media visibility, and a customer base that is increasingly comfortable with mobile-first wagering.
What makes the U.S. different from Brazil is that it scales through a fragmented map. Operators are not entering one national market. They are building a patchwork of state launches, regulatory approvals, tax responses, partnerships, and local marketing strategies. That complexity raises costs, but it also rewards the biggest and best-run groups because once they gain operational momentum, smaller rivals struggle to match their speed and spend.
FanDuel is the clearest example. Flutter reported that FanDuel held about 41% of the online sports betting market in the states where it was live in fiscal 2025. DraftKings remains another major force, and BetMGM continues to matter because it combines a recognizable brand with meaningful database and casino cross-sell strengths through Entain and MGM Resorts.
The U.S. story also reveals something important about what “fast scaling” really means. In pure regulatory novelty, the U.S. is less exciting than Brazil today. In commercial muscle, it is still unmatched. The operators that have won in America have built national technology, pricing engines, CRM systems, promo control, media integration, and sophisticated live betting experiences across multiple jurisdictions. That is why the U.S. remains the operating benchmark even when newer markets generate more headlines.
Before looking at Europe, it helps to compare how the three regions differ from a scaling perspective.
Brazil needs early position and local credibility. The U.S. demands capital, compliance depth and state-by-state execution. Europe asks for selective expansion, licensing discipline and increasingly smart use of M&A. The table below captures the practical difference.
| Region | Main growth logic | Why top bookmakers like it | Main examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | Newly regulated national-scale opening | Huge population, football culture, legal reset, room for brand capture | Betano, Betnacional/Betfair, Betsson, Sportingbet |
| United States | Large established digital sportsbook expansion | Proven customer spend, strong mobile betting habits, high-value major states | FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM |
| Europe | Mature but strategically expandable market | Dense licensing map, strong local brands, cross-border know-how, consolidation | Entain brands, Betsson, Unibet within FDJ UNITED, Sisal/Flutter |
The practical takeaway is that “fastest scaling” depends on what an operator is trying to build. If the aim is fresh market capture, Brazil stands out. If the aim is absolute sportsbook revenue scale, the U.S. still leads. If the aim is resilient multi-market positioning, Europe remains essential.
Europe: mature, crowded and still highly valuable
Europe can be misunderstood because it is not one market and because it lacks the dramatic “opening” story that Brazil has. Yet for leading bookmakers, Europe remains one of the most important expansion zones in the world. The region’s value lies less in sudden legalization and more in the quality of its regulated ecosystem, its entrenched betting culture, and the strategic opportunities created by acquisitions, brand layering and local-market specialization.
EGBA’s 2025 market figures show that Europe’s gambling market continued to grow in 2024, with online gambling reaching 39% of total gambling gross gaming revenue across the EU-27 and UK dataset. Sports and events betting represented 29% of online gross gaming revenue, which confirms that sportsbook remains a major pillar of the European online mix even though casino games account for a larger share.
That maturity creates a different kind of opportunity. Europe is rarely about finding one untouched market. It is about using brand portfolios, local compliance expertise, and product adaptability to gain share country by country. Companies that can do that well can still build very large businesses, especially when they own recognizable national brands.
FDJ UNITED’s takeover of Kindred is one of the clearest recent examples. The combination was explicitly framed as the creation of a European gaming champion. That language matters because it shows how scale in Europe increasingly comes from strategic consolidation, not only from greenfield launches. Unibet and other Kindred assets bring regional presence and brand equity that can be extended inside a larger operating structure.
Betsson provides another model. Rather than relying on one giant domestic market, it has built a broad licensed footprint and paired European strength with Latin American expansion. Entain, with brands such as bwin and Sportingbet in different geographies and its broader global operating base, remains a key example of how major bookmakers use Europe as both a profit center and a strategic launching platform. Flutter’s European positioning is similarly multi-layered, stretching across legacy brands and acquisitions such as Sisal.
Europe also disciplines operators in a useful way. Because it is more regulated and more competitive, it forces bookmakers to get better at product quality, margin control, safer gambling systems, and selective media investment. That makes Europe less glamorous as a “new market” story, but often more valuable as a test of whether a company can scale sustainably.
Which bookmakers are moving smartest across these regions
The phrase “best bookmakers” can mean many things, but in strategic expansion it usually points to a short list of global operators that repeatedly show up in regulated markets with enough capital, technology and brand depth to matter quickly.
Flutter stands out because it does not rely on one region. FanDuel gives it a commanding U.S. position, while its Brazil strategy around Betfair and Betnacional shows its willingness to combine global and local brands. Its broader investor messaging also emphasizes the long-term growth opportunity across regulated sports betting and iGaming worldwide.
Entain remains significant for a different reason. It has one of the clearest multi-market playbooks in the sector. The company can compete through its own brands and through BetMGM in the U.S., which gives it exposure to one of the most commercially important betting ecosystems in the world. That mix helps it stay relevant across both mature and developing regulated markets.
Betsson is especially interesting because it often moves with more discipline than hype. Its 2025 reporting makes clear that Latin America has become a major growth engine and that Brazil is already part of that expansion logic. For observers who want to understand how the next tier below the very biggest operators can still scale fast, Betsson is one of the best case studies.
FDJ UNITED, strengthened by Kindred, reflects the European consolidation route. It may not always dominate conversation in the same way as FanDuel or DraftKings, but strategically it is exactly the kind of operator group that can use regional density, licensing, and established brands to grow across Europe with serious durability.
Kaizen’s Betano deserves mention as well because it has shown that not every major growth story must begin in the U.S. or the UK. Its early Brazil positioning and strong brand recognition show how a well-run bookmaker can use a major newly regulated market to accelerate international stature.
Where the fastest scaling is likely to come from next
The fastest scaling over the next phase is likely to come from operators that can match market type to the right brand and the right cost structure. That sounds obvious, but it is where many expansion stories fail. A famous brand is not always the best local acquisition tool. A new license is not the same thing as a scalable business. A large launch budget does not protect margins when taxes, compliance and retention pressures rise.
Brazil looks like the clearest near-term answer for bookmakers that want fresh market share at meaningful national scale. The regulatory structure is now real, the authorized market is visible, and operators are still early enough in the cycle to shape long-term customer habits. The U.S. will remain vital because it is still the most commercially powerful regulated sportsbook environment in the world, even if the expansion story is more operational than novel. Europe will continue to reward bookmakers that can use brand portfolios, acquisitions and local licenses to build a stable multi-country base.
That means the smartest bookmakers will not choose only one path. They will use the U.S. for revenue scale, Brazil for fresh strategic capture, and Europe for depth, resilience and disciplined expansion. The companies that do all three well will shape the next era of online sports betting.
In the end, the real winners will be the operators that treat regulation not as an obstacle but as the foundation of scale. That is already separating the serious global bookmakers from the rest of the field.